View full sizeEsperanza Spalding accepts the jazz vocal album for "Radio Music Society" at the 55th annual Grammy Awards on Sunday in Los Angeles.The Associated Press

Last spring, Esperanza Spalding released the most anticipated album of her career, “Radio Music Society.” It was had to be the most anticipated because prior to 2011, when she beat Justin Bieber for the Grammy Award for best new artist, most music fans hadn’t heard of Spalding. After that night, she was famous.

Her hope, she said time and again, was to share that fame, to use it to help get her friends and mentors get the attention they deserve. Sunday afternoon in Los Angeles, she saw the tangible result of her work. She and Thara Memory, her teacher as she grew up in Portland, won the Grammy for best instrumental arrangement accompanying vocalist(s) for the “Radio Music Society” track “City of Roses,” which features students from Memory’s American Music Program.

Catch up on some more of this weekend's headlines from Portland and Multnomah County:

Building a barometer: When it's finished, what its designer hopes will qualify as the world's tallest barometer will begin measuring the atmospheric pressure in the glass atrium of Portland State University's Engineering Building. Tom Bennett, an instrument technician at PSU's Maseeh College of Engineering & Computer Science, came up with the idea two years ago.

Winter Congress: High school students in suits and ties, dresses and heels flooded the Red Lion Hotel in Jantzen Beach on Sunday, but they were not there for a winter formal. This group of 386 student members of Junior State of America gathered for the Pacific Northwest Winter Congress, a weekend convention as organized, deliberate and serious as any political gathering of folks twice their age.

Wedding cake: A lesbian couple denied a wedding cake by Gresham bakery owners who disagreed with same-sex marriage said Friday they've accepted a free cake offer from Food Network star chef Duff Goldman. Laurel Bowman of Portland and her fiancée said they’d already bought a wedding cake from Southeast Portland bakery Pastrygirl, when Goldman offered to bake and deliver a cake to them from Los Angeles. The couple, who plan to get married sometime this summer, said they’ve asked the "Ace of Cakes" star to make a bride's cake, so they can honor their commitment to Pastrygirl.

Dog custody battle: In less than 15 minutes, a fierce months-long battle over who owned a dog -- and what should happen to the woman who found the husky-shepherd mix but refused to give him back -- came to an end Friday in a Corvallis courtroom. Jordan Biggs -- the 20-year-old college student who fell so in love with the friendly dog that she was willing to risk a jail sentence and criminal record -- pleaded guilty to second-degree theft, a misdemeanor. Biggs must complete 80 hours of community service, stay away from the dog and admit in writing that Sam Hanson-Fleming of Portland is the dog's true owner.

Mayoral challenges: Six weeks into his term, Portland Mayor Charlie Hales is getting good reviews so far -- for thinking regionally, for moving quickly to rework the much-criticized Bureau of Transportation, and for selecting a small but experienced staff. But he knows the real test he'll face as mayor will be crafting the budget and delivering on his back-to-basics campaign promises.

Organic food: The folders hanging on the shipping-office wall make it clear just how mainstream the marketplace is that now irrigates the organic food movement. They direct loads of organic fruit and vegetables to more than 200 stores and restaurants that range from Portland, up through the gorge, down the coast and north into Washington. Roughly 600 trucks a month come and go at Organically Grown Co.'s 120,000-square-foot, refrigerated distribution center in Gresham. The business in organics is booming, and not just in green-trending Oregon. Even as the rest of the economy sputtered to recover in 2011, organic food sales nationally grew to $29.2 billion, a 9.4 percent increase from the year before.

School food grant: Turkey lo mein, an Asian dish with vegetables and protein, may become a new "from scratch" lunch made with locally produced foods in Centennial School District cafeterias. A ground turkey loaf, molded with mashed vegetables, is another dish that Julie Mack, the district's Healthy Active Schools coordinator, is testing for tastiness. Mack, the district's half-time coordinator of wellness programs, is using a $29,033 grant from the state Department of Education to bring more local foods into school cafeterias to expand food choices and help support local food producers.

Parents' grievances: A long line of Portland Public Schools parents and teachers on Saturday aired grievances about the superintendent’s recent proposal to balance enrollments among North and Northeast Portland schools. Three dozen community members testified on Saturday morning, most of whom pushed back on aspects of Superintendent Carole Smith’s plan.

Film festival: For 36 years, the Northwest Film Center has served us the world in the form of the Portland International Film Festival, the annual cinematic smorgasbord that dominates the local movie going scene each February. This year's edition runs through Feb. 23 and consists of more than 130 feature and short films from nearly 50 nations. That's a mammoth haul, more than anyone, even the most ardent PIFF addict, can see, let alone absorb. It's so much, in fact, that it leads one to ponder what PIFF is, what it isn't, and how it might be different.